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420 In that life the main interest was not political loss and gain. Milnes was not easily irritated by opposition or satire, but he was extremely susceptible about anything like a want of regard or reciprocity, and above all suspicious of a disposition to take him as a mere ornament. He had deserved well of all men. He had made it a point of honour to be generous and helpful with very many, to be patient and good-humoured with everybody. As time passed and shadows lengthened, he found that there were some who repelled his advances and depreciated his merits. These were the failures which he felt, which he resented in private life quite as much as in public. There was more wounded good-nature than wounded ambition in his regrets. There were some, too, in a further circle, of whom he thought or experimentally found that he could make nothing, and who thought themselves just as good, or as bad, as his miscellaneous society. Certain feuds, such as those with George Smythe and Panizzi, are mentioned by Mr. VVemyss Reid. Those who shared his confidence could no doubt show a longer and more characteristic list of men who were not in harmony, who sneered at or obstructed him, and on whom he avenged himself by the perfect perspicacity of his spoken or written judgments. He speaks of Thackeray's occasional perversity, and thinks that Sidney Herbert ought to have prospered, because he had both wealth, grace, tact, and not too much principle. One of his gravest and probably most sincere utterances is this : "As one gets on in life, one of the most annoying reflections is the little good one has done by what people call benevolence ; in fact, how little man can be benefited by others."

It would be absurd to accept with Philistine gravity the extravagant sayings in which Houghton vented his dislike of the social enemy, of prejudices and idols, of impostors and bores, or to confound riotous paradox with explosions of genuine conviction. We often remember Lord Tennyson's warning : "Every fool will think he I meant it." It occurs to us where he speaks of the mendacity of Orleanist ministers, as well as in the passages where he